Butterfly lore

With some butterflies in decline we decided to be part of the butterfly lore release programme, so we purchased some baby caterpillars online from the butterfly lore people, and very quickly we were sent 2 tubs of 10 baby caterpillars with their own nutrients to much on which they duly got tucked into.  

Day 1 small caterpillars get munching 

Day 3 there has been a lot of eating and growing 

Day 5 getting rather large and there is silk appearing around the tub 

 Day 7 The caterpillars decide to start hanging from the lid

Day 8 Time to make a cocoon 

Day 8 cocoons moved into the new butterfly house ready for them to emerge

Day 15 first butterflies start to emerge

As they emerge they immediately walk to the top of the house pumping their wings to straighten them out

If you look to the bottom left of the 2nd circle of paper you will see what a butterfly looks like 1 second after it breaks out of its cocoon very squashed folded up wings

All butterflies make it out of the cocoons, however we have 1 butterfly that didn't pump his wings properly and has a bent wing meaning he cant fly and we will probably look after him in the house as he can only walk and will get eaten by a larger animal

Sophie does a stock count that all 10 pretty painted lady butterflies are present and is very happy to see them all.  She and the whole family has loved watching them grow everyday and seeing them change and turn into butterflies, it has been a really amazing experience and a great learning tool.   

Day 18 and the butterfly house becomes a hot bed of randy butterflies

Day 19 time to release the butterflies, Sophie is so excited and gets to have the butterflies on her hand to release them into the garden. 

With so many butterflies to let go daddy pitches in and helps

Butterfly number 9 decides that it actually liked being in the house and wanted to stay refusing to fly away so Sophie told it all was o'k and it was time to go out into the big world and lay those eggs from yesterdays naughty session, it had a very important job to do to make lots more butterflies. 

Well we have awoken today to see butterfly 10 who is the one with the broken wings and it is a she and she has been very busy laying lots and lots of eggs so i guess we are now going to see the circle of life again.